LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 
Shelf.jiE.iiB & 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



BITS OF BLUE 



BY 



/ 



WESLEY BISSONNETTE 

it 



%in&y 



CHICAGO 
CHARLES H. KERR AND COMPANY 

1893. 



Copyright 1893 
By Wesley Bissonnette 



BITS OF BLUE. 

AN AUTUMN LYRIC 

Dressed in a sober drab and dreamy sweet 

With shadowy, shy smiles, 
Didst slide along on satin, silvery feet, 

With lips of lavender in song-soft styles : — 
So shy with shadowy smiles 

In drab and dreamy dresses, sober-sweet. 

Dressed in a dream of days, 
Strange sleeper! bright in slumbery, soft 
shades ; 
Dost streak the sky as with a silver sleep, 
And web the world in skeiny sheens of 
haze; 
Gloom-fingered and gold-footed in the 
glades, 
Dressed dreamily, dost peep ; 
And darken in thy misty hair that fades, — 

Cooling in purple braids, 
Sleep-silvery songster of the shadowy days ? 



AN AUTUMN LYRIC 

'Tis Autumn brown doth revel all abroad 

Enriched with gilded leaves, 
The which he yields unto the yellow sod 

That purples proud, until it grayly 
grieves ; 
Gay Autumn and his leaves, 
That redden on the grass and golden sod 

Lush laugher of the leaves! 

A reveler is he in red and gold ; 
No whit afraid to tan his yellow curls 
Mid buff-bronze, cribs of corn and purple 
sheaves, 
With wine-warm cheeks ablush with 
crimson cold 
He glooms the nut-brown girls 
Gold at his mellow heels, and then behold 

Poor Autumn in the cold 
With sober songs among his shy sweet 
leaves ! 

Gray-green upon the hills he haunts no 
more ; 
Faint-footed by the rills, 
He withers now and all his gilding ore 



AN AUTUMN LYRIC 

Gleams wan and wasted on the wistful 

hills: 
Ghost-golden by the rills, 
Gray -green upon the hills he wandered 

o'er. 

Thou art the psalmist sad, 

Dear Autumn, deep in thy mute mellow 
mood 
Why wilt thou pine as though a dear desire 
Haunted thee ever into music, mad 

And melancholy in the old-gold wood ? 

Where is thy magic fire, 
That flared thy fancies in the solitude, 

Flaming through every feud, 
And glaring grand in glooms and glimpses 
glad? 

And never now the music of the morn 

Floods fanciful his flute; 
And all the honeyed hollows of the horn 

Once glad with glee and gold are 
gushing mute: 

The music of the flute 
Eve echoes in the hollows of the horn. 



AN AUTUMN LYRIC 

Thus ever dost thou pine, 

Thus ever in the sallow and the sere 
On some sweet sorrow dearer day by day ; 
Deep as delight ! ay ; that dear death 
of thine! 
For this thy gold was garnered, for the 
year, 
The gentle year grown gray; 
For his reward who brought the stranger 
here — 
Fond friend so dim and dear — 
The dear dark death for whom thou dost 
repine ! 

So shall I leave thee with the golden year! 

With that fair friend of thine; 
Dear Autumn, with thy darling, thy most 
dear! 
Her shadowy sunlit hair doth o'er thee 

shine — 
Thy dearest, thy divine 
Dear death, that dreams upon the golden 
bier! 



THE GOLD-GIRL 

I have seen her never near, 
Dreamer of the dim and clear 
Dearest gold-girl of the year 

All the woodlands shaming, 
From the green-gray into red 
Where her saffron skirts were shed 

In a yellow flaming. 

I have seen her curls nut-brown, 
Dark and ruffled, thickly thrown 
O'er her hazel shoulders down, — 

Breezy, buff and tanning, — 
To her liquid limbs and zone, 
Slender, supple, in a gown, 

Sunlit amber waning. 

Once — her fingers faintly flare 
Ripe and tan upon the fair 
Ivory nuts enriching their 



THE GOLD- GIRL 

Gold and ebon graining ; 
Flushing brownly through the glare. 
Of the maple leaves, the air 

Her cheeks, redly staining. 

Ay : and laughing looks between 
Film-flushed foliage; dimly seen 
Red-lipped through the golden green 

Of the forest's flaring ; 
And her sweet eyes kissed and keen 
Darkle thro' the purple sheen 

Like cool violets staring. 

Saw her black and breezy braids 

In wet webs of silver shades, 

Shine through shadow-smiling glades 

Her fair flesh enchanting 
Vaguely, as it were a maid's, 
Who smiles starry as she fades, 

Shyly in her haunting. 

By a sober gold-wood way, 
Shy and silent, saw her stray, 
A sweet shadow of the day, 
Loving leaves and wooing 



THE GOLD- GIRL 

All their purple to the gray ; 
While the serious airs would say 
Songs of her sweet cooing. 

In the crisp and ci'imson corn 
With a frosty fringe of morn 
Round her rosy body worn 

Saw her bloom and blossom ; — 
Roses in the nut-brown corn ; 
Ah, but soon the sun had shorn 

Sheen thro' blush and bosom. 

Where red apples on gray trees 
Burn blush-blue — a bit of breeze, 
Honey-heavy as blackbees: — 

Was she mute or missing? 
Nay : but gilt the grass with lees — 
Scarlet sun-stains tricked from these 

By her wine-wild kissing. 

When the breezes blithe began 
Trickling thro' the golden tan, 
Was it Zephyrus, the fan, 

Trebling thoughts, and telling 
All her prettiness to Pan, 



THE GOLD- GIRL 

Whose rare reeds in ripples ran 
To his brown nut-shelling? 

When the trees took tender bloom, 
Rose-red glory in the gloom, 
Crimson in the silver spume, 

Was Aurora blushing — 
Fragrant in her flowery room, 
Faint with all the fond perfume 

Of Apollo's flushing? 

What was this whereof I say, 
Sight that never mortal may 
See on any working day — 

Beauty, boon or blessing? 
Girl of gold or ghost of gray : 
Who, ah, who, could ever say 

If the world were guessing? 



SINGERS 

Hark! silver rill, so sweetly spill 
The blue that brims thy bowl : 

Spill out the laugh my love doth quaff- 
The spikenard of my soul ! 

Sing sweetly, rill, to bud and bee, 

That my dear love may sing to me. 

Say budding breeze, whose trieklings 
tease — 

Wine filtered from a wire ! — 
Do thou blow by the sweetest sigh 

Unto my soul's desire! 
Sigh, little songs, sweet sorrows be, 
That my dear love may sigh for me. 

Say, yellow bee, O sunny bee, 
The one that getteth honey, 

From any bud the dew-drops stud, — 
A golden strain and sunny ! 

Fetch strains of sun and spice, O bee, 

My sweet love brings her soul to me. 



A LYRIC OF JUNE 

I see her where she sits, 
Among green leaves, a maiden singing there 

In love's melodious fits ! 
A girl of fresh white hue and yellow hair, 

In her sweet maidenhood 
Fanned faintly, till a woman pure and fair 

Unfoldeth like a bud 
Before a breeze of love; — but love, despair! 

Thy warm pipes melt on air! 

For back she blooms a girl ; 
Tempting herself into a maiden mood — 
A singer with an eyelid and a curl ! 

And half white womanhood, and half 

A dear wild girl — 

The fairest of fresh things — 
A sweet young face to pity, pout or laugh ; 

But now that fondly sings. 

Shy silences in sweet blue summer noons ! 
To white maturities her lilies calm — 
An essence of warm girlhood and soft 
dreams — 



A LYRIC OF JUNE 

A dreamer fair and bland ! 
Faint languors of the night and florid 

moons! 
She swooneth like a dim delirious balm, 
And like a blonde voluptuary seems, 

With yellow curls, myrrh-fanned. 

Ah, June, 
Thou hast a decent and a drunken tune! 

O thou bird-throated loon, 
AVith love-lipped reeds adrip and breezy 
bells ; 
One is a liquid tune — 
A lyric silenced in sweet lilac smells, 

And rich in restful spells, 
That ripple like the singer unto the lolling 
stops ! 
And one wild joy 
Blown to the moon from mossy forest 

tops : — 
A gust of roses and of poppies fraught 

With such enjoyment hot ! — 
More like the mad emotion of a boy 
Than any blooming maiden's, white and 
coy : — 



A LYRIC OF JUNE 

A maiden sober-sweet, and then 
A shape of soft delirium in a dream 

Art thou again, 
And never art the thing that thou dost 
seem ! 

Sweet sylvanist! sylph statued from a 

bird ! 
Or slumberer in violets cool and thick ; 

thou art but a word 

For musing conjurers and idlers sad 
Whose pipes are weak and sick : 

Or some solution strained from bud and 
bird 
Heard, but unheard! 
Though yet I see 

Thou hast another method than the mad 

Wild jubilance akin to mockery 

That makes the greenwood glad ! 

1 know thee in a mood 

When thou dost pout and brood 
Whole afternoons and gloat on lilies cold, 

Pouting away the gold — 
Thy life's rich fits of honey like too-sweet 
food, 



A LYRIC OF JUNE 

By apple-sick, stale men profusely rolled : — 
A winning girl lured by a pouting mood ! 

The golden pout 
Of thy hot mood ooze musically out 
Upon a slow, long, langorous tune; 
Dissolving lips that cause a balmy swoon 
In gushing pipes of some melodious glee — 

Reeds throbbing silverly : 
There thy mad longing and sweet passion 

soon, 
Thy liquid fits of love too hot for thee 

Lull slow and languorously 
And dream like pure clouds swimming in 
the moon. 

Sing azure maiden, thuft, 

Thy best self back to us : 

Melt passion's purple hue 

From out the pallid blue 
Of love and leave a lilac purity : 

Leave August violet skies 

To cloud cerulean eyes, 
And dip her senses in a drowsy dream i 

And in spiced stupors be 



A LYRIC OF JUNE 

And sunny luxury 
And doze deep in the days her mellow mood 
doth deem ! 



SUN-SONG 

Sun, Sun, that falleth to the waning eves 
What if thou diest, ere the mute to-mor- 
row? 
The year is flee.ng, fading, like the leaves 
And the gray days reveal agolden sorrow. 
The leaves are dying and the days are dy- 
ing: 
The leaves of life are blown like autumn 
leaves ; 
The sun hath set and where is he who 

grieves. 
The leaves have fallen, all on the fallen 
grass-; 
All on the blown and fallen grasses 
lying. 
Life's leaves are dead forever : let it pass ! 
Gray o'er the golden sod the year is 
-dying: 



SUN-SONG 

Sun, Sun, that falleth to the waning eves: 
We fall with thee that fallest with the 
leaves ; 
Autumn hath come and Autumn will be 

going. 
Sweet Autumn came; his dying was so 
dear ; 
All o'er the gilded grass the year was 
graying ; 
Dear Autumn died, and fallen to the sere 
All in gray grass the golden year's de- 
caying, 
Sun, Sun, that falleth to the waning eves ; 
A leaf may go! and where is he who 
grieves ? 
Leaf, life and love and Autumn all are 
going. 



AUTUMN ETCHINGS 

The sky is gray and on the world a gloom ; 
The woods are gold and gray -green fields 

forlorn 
Gleam in the wan death of the wasted day. 

The leaves are red, (who cares for sallow 

leaves ? ) 
The golden buffs, the tan of brownish 

yellow ; 

The russet dusks, the cream of fairness 

mellow 
Are very dear, although they dream and 

die. 

Broad vales are brown below the barren 

hills ; 
And all the gold has withered in the 

grass ; 



AUTUMN ETCHINGS 
The purple grass is gray upon the hills. 

Nor chill nor wan, but shocks of the red 

corn 
Rich in tanned suns and baked with the 

bronze Are, 
And ivory nuts of ebon-colored desire 
And flaring fruits grow friendly with the 

world. 

***** 

The winds are wild and bitter are the trees : 
The winds are still until they grieve no 

more; 
And the weak rains are hushed by fallen 

leaves. 

There is a hush of sorrow in the air 
There is a -sound of sadness in the leaves; 
Sad year art thou, that like a palmer grieves 

As if the magic of the tinsel noon 
Gilding her gloom, left Autumn more 

forlorn ; 
As if her music was the lingering swoon 
Gnarled in the golden hollows of a horn ! 



AUTUMN ETCHINGS 

The red day 
Dies in a rose of crimson, cloudy ripples ; 
Ay, from the dying day 
The gold hath gone away ; 
Faint browns, soft lavenders, what other 
shades 
Have withered in the glades; 
So hath the world grown gray 



LEAF LYRICS 

SPRING 

Buds of breezy spring, 
Birds and breeze and blue ; 

Love in the lilacs sing, 
Blue, blue, blue! 

Buds of balmy blue 
Breeze of beauty bring. 

SUMMER 

Blushes bright and bold 
Like a girl in green ; 

Lush life of greenest gold, 
Green, green, green! 

Purple grass and pale; 
Pansy passion old. 



LEAF L YRICS 



World-ward windy wings, 
Gold-wings growing gray; 

Bird-blight! the silence sings, 
Gray, gray, gray! 

Where the bine bird sings, 
Swan-like shadows say. 

l' envoi 

Bird and breeze of blue; 

Grass of gold and green; 
Left, love and life of you. 

Gold girl, green! 
Blithest blue hath been; 

Gray is going, too. 



HALF-TONE 

The sky is rainy and pale, 
And gloomed in a glass of gray; 

And dull-black blue-dark sheets 
Of a sleep that slays the day. 

Over the gray-green world 

A gray-blue mist is still, 
In a steel and satin sheen 

Like a cloth of silver chill. 

And the brown-red woods are gloomed 
And the waste-white fields are lorn ; 

Gray with the green gone out 
In the dolorous dream of morn. 

And the black-blue slopes are blurred; 

And the pale-blue landscapes lay 
Drab; with the dull, dark trees, 

Black in the blur of gray, 



HALF-TONE 

And wild as the wandering birds; 

Far as my fancies roam ; 
Over the waste world wide 

What words are the haunting home : 

Cold as a coil of clay 

In the chill and clime of night, 
And the doom of dark decay 

And the death of all delight. 



ENCHANTMENT 

Old legends had I read in poesy; 
Old curled tales antique in gnarled 
rhyme, 
Of witching spells and weird grotesquerie, 
Dusk-dreams and tranced enchantments 
in the time 
Of drear astrologers in dread retreat 
With witches bad and death moths 
boding slow, 
Haunting the twilight shades of long ago, 
With sleepy gnomes and dim enchanters 
sweet. 

Oft had I heard of beauty's featured charm, 
And oft of magic music's golden spell ; 
And sometimes felt; but never knew, the 
staves 
Were so divine to make the dolphins 
swarm ; — 
Winning dominion with a silver shell. 
Sweet Arion warbling o'er the purple 
waves ! 



PHANTOMS 

I am haunted by a flute. 
Tender tones are never mute. 
'Tis the musicallest reed 
Ever sweetened from a weed. 

Sings the silver of the breeze 
Songs that trickle in the trees. 

Melts the music of the morn 
From hushed hollows of her horn. 

Lips the laughter of the hills 
In blue ripples of the rills. 

Listens like the liquid swoon 
Silenced in the purple noon. 

Dreams the the deepest in a drowse 
Ruffled bees disturb nor rouse. 

Tempts me with a turtle's tune 
Through the slumbery afternoon, 



PHANTOMS 

Tinkles twenty times, a cricket 
Tangling trebles in a thicket, 

Sorrows as mystic bird, 
Melts a magical sweet word. 

Muses melancholy, mad. 

In the twilight starred and sad. 

Hark ! and hear ; it mutters mute, 
Silence sweeter than a lute. 
Hush! and never now a noon 
Sweetens in this solitude. 
Thus in music, thus, or mute, 
I am haunted by a flute. 
Music of the mellow morn: 
Magic of the marble horn. 

Drowsy straws that spirt and swoon 
Serene slumbers of the moon. 

Tongues among the green and gold,— 
Turtle's tales of twilight cold. 
Ay ; and songs of far and near, 
Sweet and strangled in my ear. 
Ay; and sounds in silver skies 
Strained from shells of Paradise. 
These and more of deep and dear 



PHANTOMS 

Lipped and lyred in mine ear. 
Answer, music never mute, 
Am I haunted by a flute? 
These and more of deep and dear; 
What is there I may not hear? 



THE AUTUMN GRASS 

In this faint green a girl of gold doth gleam. 

The grass-ghost gray, — 
Gray-green beneath the yellow maple's 

dream 
Glares pale and withered in her gilding gay 

The yellow reddens; for the maid hath 
blushed 
Pale-pink among the trees ; 
And all she feels in rose and gold is flushed 
And glows upon the grass, and blooms 
the breeze. 

Ay; think not, thou, who grievest for the 
grass. 
Her beauty gay — 
Her beauty gold and glowing may not pass 
Nor purple the pale grass nor gild the 
gra y ! 



THE NAIAD-NIGHT 

The daffodil that dreams! thou, darling 
dark, 
Tinct by the magic moon-maid's gracious 
glow ; 
Her marble roses, diamond-dewy, mark, 
The white stars blow ! 

Dai'k with the dreams that shade in starry 
smiles 
Through pallid eyelids, pearly as with 
myrrh, — 
The swan-sweet sih r ery cloud-curls sleep 
beguiles 
To lavender. 

The maiden sleepeth and her mind doth 
dream ; 
Ah me, the light of love, the loveliness ; — 



THE hi 'A IAD- NIGHT 

The bloom of beautv in the blush and beam — 
A god might guess ! 

She sleeps, the sleep in slow smiles spangled 
o'er 
The sweet-senescent shadow songs that 
seem 
Luted by lovely lips from long lost lore. — 
The lilac gleam. 

She dreams, a dream of visions vague 
and bright 
Desires and dawns, to lustrous lyres 
set; 
Praying, the purple pansy of the night 
On some pale violet. 

The mystic maid! May no dark dream 
enfold : 
Nor white-winged dawn, nor darling 
dove of day; 
But this delight of violet and gold, 
Swan sleep away. 



A MARBLE LAMP 

It is a sphere of whiteness and of dew, — 

A marble orb of pallid purity 
Globed in a satin glass and washed anew 

With phosphorous foam that filters radi- 
antly 
In lustrous lees of light like dreams of dew. 

It is a lucid temple limned in light 
By golden motes with glittering denizens : 

It is an ivory fane whence shepards white, 
Emerging faintly from those golden pens, 

Watch all the gilded fleeces bland and bright 
Roam from the meads of angels down to 
men's. 

It is an image of the mighty sun, 

This mild and mellow orb of milky glass,— 
A minute of an immortality — 
Made by a hand it yet survives for onp 



A MARBLE LAMP 

Long second — so, and then doth sweetly 
pass 
To that decay which yet must mildly be 
For thee and all, fair image of the sun ! 



SPRING SKETCHES 

Ye pale disciples of the beautiful. 

Worn whitely by the fair fleet-figured 

thoughts 
That faint and flutter dove-like, dreamily : 
Pure, through the marble porches of the 

mind ; 
If the sweet senses are acute no more 
To snare the shadowy fragrancy of forms, 
And that thy fingers feel the fairy skill 
Fade fleetly : — O sweet painters fanciful, 
Feed on the fragile fancies ere they fade: — 

A glow of roses in the blush of morn. 
And soon the roses open to the blush ; 

A purple pallor laves the lilac eve, 
And soon the lilacs odorously bloom. 

A cloud of blossoms sparkles out of trees, 
And now a blossom flutters o'er the world,— 



SPRING SKETCHES 

The green and bine are mystically one ; 
An artist melts in tree and grass and sky : — 

The dales have fair and yellow buttercups, 
And yellow buttercups have gilded bees : — 

The fresh young lambs are whitened like 

the cloud, 
And all the clouds are purified like cream : — 

The pale pink buds are fledged to carmine 

blooms, 
And all the birds are budding into song: — 

The winds have sweetness like a gust of 

spice, 
The flavored voids of sweet and gushing 

stops ; — 

A shepardess has strayed among the hills, 
And feeds with honey all the breed of flow- 
ers : — 

There comes a maiden white with yellow 

curls 
And they are dressed with dew and buds 

and stars ; — 



SPRING SKETCHES 

A sweet musician in the gauze and strain 
Of fingered cymbals, dimly lipping reeds. 

She is a rosy priestess bibbing wine 
From rills, and eating garland-foam for 
bz*ead. 

O what a birth of love,— the flowery babe; 
And now she is a maid and loves herself;— 

The innocent white months have felt her 

face 
Glow whitely down, and they are mad for 

spring, 

And she has kissed them till their hearts 

are red 
As hers is red, and she is white for love. 



AN IDYL IN BLUE 

A lilac liquor brims the white tureen 
With fringing lips of marble cloud, spilled 
o'er, 
By the cerulean surplus, drenching more 
With indigo the pallid lakes between 
Where sails of spring haunt round the 
sapphire shore. 

Now is the globe of heaven glassed serene, 
The sky is such a bowl of melted blue; 

The temple and the trees, the white and 
green, 
Are sippiug bibbers of the sapphire hue. 

Almost the birds seem blue upon the wing ; 

The violet lamp of spring is lit to day 
Nearly to purple : — O thou pallid spring, 

Dostthou know this, that blue fades into 
gray, 



AN IDYL IN BLUE 

Blue artist, though you hear but summer 

sing? 



TO A WILD DOVE 

Sweet argonaut, with sky-gray wings 
that fare. 
On lavender and lily bays above : 
Thou white- winged shell of song ! O pal- 
lid dove ! 
Thou slim and shapely sailor of the air! 

Thou seraph style ! Thou attic argosy ! 

Thou attitude, thou instance pale and 
proud ! 

Thou marble mould of any satin cloud, 
The spirit of the sculptor shaping thee! 

Thou art an Argonaut more fair and free 
Than any here and thou hast not the strife 

Of starving mortals, thou hast liberty, 
O artist, and the art that is thy life. 



A TEMPLE OF SPRING 

The gracile clouds are fledged like feathers 
there 
And cloudy fledges blossom round the 

blue, 
Like flowery figures, o'er this dsedal day :— 
A violet vase imbloomed with tinctures 
rare, 
Moist roses and the sunlight and the dew, 
At this white altar where few pilgrims 
spare 
To serve for aye, their virtue to renew 
With its red wine, though they are weak 
and gray ! 

More like a temple is the sky to-day, 
With gold and myrrh, the lilliesand the 
wine ! 
And O ye votaries of beauty, say 



A TEMPLE OF SPRING 

Now wherefore are ye shut from the 
divine, 
In your own mortal temples frail and gray : 
Leaving the birds and pipers here to play, 

O stone-blind statues at a marble shrine? 



VIOLETS 

The world is like a water color scene 
That some fair artist paints with pallors 
bine, 
And tinctures spared from bowls of white 
and green 
To lend the lovely lavender their hue. 

The sky is a sweet violet of spring ; — 
The beautiful imperial fn the blue ; 
The world is like the moss beneath the dew, 
The statue-stone that evermore doth sing- 
Sweetly, for beauty, too! 

What if wild beauty lives no more to-day ; 

Melt not thy tears, fair sculptor, where it 
sets; 
Nor thou sweet artist raving at the gray,— 

The sky is yet a vase of violets ! 



LILACS 

They faded with the flowery fading days, 
Their birth made sweeter than the violets ; 

Nor did they spare in lavender decays 
Their lovelier amulets. 

Too lovely and too sweetly born, too soon 
The odorous vials spilled; twas hardly 
mete 
Fond love should so be cheated, though in 
June 
Their death was very sweet ! 



THE FAR CLOUDS 

What are ye there, wreathed flowery and 
white 
About the broad-orbed forehead of the 
blue? 
Are ye sweet shapes bred by his inmost sight 
That his cerulean brows have budded 
through? 

White sluniberers in the blue crystaline! 
White shadows in the pallid amethyst; 
Whose lillied dreams through all their slum- 
bers shine 
As though their feathery lids were lucent- 
kissed 
By marble liquids tinctured fair and fine ! 

Sleep on and ever by that purple shore, 
Ye satin slumber-shells of argentry ; — 
Ye waxen bowls of Morphean melody ! 



THE FAR CLOUDS 

Swoon on, till deepest sleep is sleep no 
more ! 
►Spill from thy drowsy brims the slumber- 
ous store 
The music of thy dewy deepness free 
In cooling quietude soft-swimming o'er 
The flowery world of mortals on to me ! 

So could I dream forever but to feel 
Thy fairy fingers o'er my eyelids faint 

Melt the immortal curtains that conceal 
What words may never paint ! 

But ye fan on, till this is like to thee, 

Ye lucid fans with azure whiteness 
pin shed ! 
But ye fan on, though that may never be; 

Fan on, for the warm world is never 
hushed : 
Wave on, fair fans ! we only look and long 

For a faint feather never wafted by, 
Like some sweet shell dissolving in a song, 

Dreaming of death and immortality, 
Until the showy legends sleep in shade — 
Fading and fading as all fancies fade — 

Until we long to live and long to die. 



MAGIC 

The ruffled god his anger 'gan relent 

When music dripped like honey in his ears, 

From the white hives of Hermes' ivory sent ; 

Then o'er the green and glittering slopes 

they went — 

The thief and he to hunt the golden 

steers ! 



THE WORD 

From the green and glorious woods ; 
From the golden solitudes ; 

From the woodlands of the west: 

From the forest's flaring fancies, 
Dark and gold as purple pansies, 

That the birds impassion best : — 

From the dewy deeps enchanted 
By green sunsets grayly haunted, 
Mute and musical I heard ; — 

Like a music wild with folly, 
Mystic, mad and melancholy, 
But the wonder of a word. 

Haunted me through every olden 
Alley, gray and grand and golden 
Of the green and ghostly woods. 

Haunted me with harpings never 



THE WORD 

Hushed, as now it haunts me ever, 
With its mad and mighty moods. 

80 my soul went rich and roaming 
Through the gray and golden gloaming 
Of the green and gloomy woods ; 

When a word that was a wonder, 
My mad musing shore asunder, 
In the mighty solitudes. 

Its wild music haunts me ever, 
Like a might that misses never 
Magic in these mystic moods. 



THE DAY-DREAM 

Though thou art pink with play, 
Most modest maid art thou, dream of 
day; 
Though proud as pansy night, 
A soft sweet beauty reared in roses white, 
And lured by lilac love to purple-gray, 
Too gracile-sweet for sight ; 
Or paling in an amethystine myrrh 
Thou dove of dreams and daisy of de- 
light ! 
Thou darling daffodil, thou dove end eared! 
Was never girl so gay ! 

How like a lucent nymph hath she ap- 
peared 
Tinct with the marble slumber where she 
lay 
Her blossom bare or in gray glosses bleared 



THE DAY-DREAM 

And lovely clouds of lustrous lavender: 
Mali an Day 

Mild in the mellow mists of myrrh, 
Mute with the marble slumber far away. 

How doth she languish in the slumbery 
clear, 
Streaking her whitest body with drab laces 

And orbing in the dewy atmosphere, 
Fair swan of silver spaces ! 

As if to feel the ether fond and faint 
And blush to blisses at its bright embraces; 

As if to faint from all her features dear, 
And fan her love beyond such rare restraint. 

She is a virgin in white ivory, 
Too pallid-pure to dip into the gold 

And gild her limbs with delicate delight ! 
She is a maid of moistest modesty 

Who doth her fairness fragrantly enfold 
From the plush palmy pleasures of the sun, 

Who still would kiss and kiss for sweet- 
est spite 

What he doth madly mold, — 
Her bai*e blonde beauties in his flush and 
flight :— 



THE DAY-DREAM 

Gold aquiline, the apples white, and won, 
For a warm wooer, tender balmy bold ; 

Burning in his dark violet vault anon, — 
The purple, panting, sweet, impassioned 
night ! 



THE MAY-MAID 

She is a slim-sheathed being, blossom- 
born ; 
With gray gold gauzes stirring into sight, 
Like misty dresses o'er the shadowy grass, 
Swathing her limbs in skeins of slumbery 
light, 
Until the white hot sodder of the morn, 
Swelling o'er all the silvery sluices bright 
Seals the chill world in frosty wreaths of 

glass. 

* * * * 

Whence came this flowery mortal we be- 
hold 
In starred skirts all bud-bewildered, 
bright, 
With golden whiteness gleamed with whit- 
est gold, 
And all her lucent body laced in light 



THE MAY-MAID 

And white embroideries that plume and 
press 
Her budding' beauties in their fairy fold, 
Until they shimmer into satin sight 
In plush-pouts pale from crystal wreaths 
of dress? 

She hath a lily for a silver horn,— 
A milky shell, clear-tinct with diamond- 
dew, 
And marbled with moist strains that curd 
and chill, 
Embossing all the music of the morn, 
Until her lips melt out a liquid thrill 
Of zephyrs sweet and ditties sweet and 
new! 

Art thou that other, thou that winter- 
white, — 
That marble May, fledged with the feath- 
ery herds 
Of death-white myrrh who cometh now to 
fright 
The buds of spring ?— but, no ! thy face is 
bright 



THE MAY- MAID 

With joyous June; and hark! what bud- 
ding words 
Haunt thy white bosom through green 
gauzes light, 
Dreamed by delighted birds ! 

Ay ; thou art like a lily fresh and sweet. 
Thy bosoms are orbed lilies plushed and 
pale ; 
Thou art a lily budding from thy feet 
In gradual grace, — a turtle-sculptured tale 
Of some immortal sweetness thou dost 
taste. 
Thou art a lilac into whiteness kissed 

By hyacinthine rains that sweetly sail 
Splashed from the tiny stars of amethyst 
And globing o'er the world in glasses 
pale ! 
But thou art best thyself, in flowery haste 
Strewing the spangled buds like purple 
hail! 



DREAM DAYS 

Shy and sweet and mystical, 

Wining ways; 
Sober, shadowy and still 

Homes of haze; 
These I love — the lavender 

Dreams of days. 

Drowsy, dark and slumbery ; 

Cool and clear; 
Wove in webs streaked silvery, 

Thou dost peer, 
Pale through purple smiles and stars, 

Dreamy dear! 

Green and gleaming with old gold ; 

Strands of shade and shine, 
That thy breezy braids infold, 

Trickle like wild wine: 
One look liquid, long and mute 

Melts to mine! 



DREAM DAYS 

Gray and golden in the woods ; 

Gilded gray; 
In the sober solitudes 

Deep decay, 
Darkens dearly thy mild moods, 

Mellow May! 

Songs as sharp as tears and tunes 

Toll at morn; 
Sighs ! the amber afternoons 

Flare forlorn 
Fancies, as they flicker o'er 

The crimson corn. 

Yearnings of the yielding year 

To the yellow leaf; 
Sighings of a strange and sere 

Shadowy grief; 
Shades of silvery sadness o'er 

The gold sheaf. 

Dear are these, the dreamful days; 

Days of dreams! 
Smiling through the happy haze, 

Breezy beams 



DREAM DAYS 

Of a blurred and beautiful 
Song that seems: 

Of a something starred in mists 

Smile the shades, 
Through the airy amethysts 

Of gold glades, 
Like the demon of my dreams 

Ere she fades. 

Dear are these, the dreamy days, 

Days of dreams; 
When from happy homes of haze 

Something seems, 
Dreaming like the darling demon 

Of my dreams. 



WORLD-WAY 

The fields were broad and green, 
And now they are brown and flat; 

The way of the fields of the world, 
However you think of that. 

And the woods were green-and-gold ; 

And the gold hath gone in the gray ; 
The way of the woods and the world, 

The wistful world-wood way! 

And the days that once were dreams, 
Ah, the days are dark and deep;— 

The way of the days of death, 
With a song as strange as sleep. 

For the clouds are over the blue, 
Over every bit of the blue ; — 

The way of the winds of the world 
That have nothing better to do! 



WORLD- WAY 

Ay, that is the way of the world, 
And the way of the yearing years; 

And the yielding life and the yellow leaf 
And the thoughts that turn to tears. 

And the fields were broad and green, 
And now they are brown and flat ; — 

Not only the way of the fields of the world" 
However you think of that! 



THE WAYSIDE MILL 

Half-sunken to its shadow in the stream 

That like a destiny doth dream anear, 
It keeps a hoary vigil year by year, 

Like a gray patriarch who aye doth seem 
To pause and ponder on a lost regime 

Through immemorial age, and not a tear 
Of great regret or memory most dear 

Survives upon the portals of his dream. 

And death hath gone away, as half afraid 
To lay his shadowy hand upon its dome; 

The old domain of all the days decayed 
Hath not a legend for death's utter tome; 

Hath naught for death's demesne that here 
hath stayed ; 
Here only haunting echoes have a home. 



A NIGHT THOUGHT 

Smiling in stars, with brilliance beautiful, 
The night nymph darkens, like a sweet 
surmise 

Of some swan-spirit singing, 
Sweeter than beauty unto earthly eyes. 

Might and imagination, mystical — 
The music of the mind : lo this doth seem 

The muse-maid universal 
Starring her songs and dying in the 
dream. 

Dying the death ■ of dreams for one 
desire, 
Dearer than death, the diamond dark 
above ; 
Tinct with eternity — the silence — stars — 
Lo, like a thought of truth the night 
I love. 



THE DREAM YEAR 

Dreams are the days of gold in gloom and 
glare ; 
They dream and die and soon the gold is 
gone ; 
And the gray year in silvery shadowy hair 
Faints in his foot-flare wan. 

Fades, and his eyes are purple where they 
peer, 
Deep with the death that webs the world 
in gray ; 
Flares faint into the yellow of the year 
The gilded world away. 

Shades with the shadowy star-smiles morn 

doth brim : 
Vague with the violet, vapory veils of 

noon ; 
Duskswalnut-dark, with golden liquors dim 



THE DREAM YEAR 
In twilight's silvery swoon. 

Ay, like a nut, it hath a kernel, too: — 
A song of sweetness, though the shell is 
sere; 

Are not sweet sorrows and the dearer due 
Of death thine, dreaming year? 



IN AUTUMN 

When dying leaves gloom amberly, 

And weak things sigh, 
Upon the wind's shrill melody 

And pine to die: 

When pleading reeds are heard in hollows 
old 

And shrilly scare the moon, 
And haggard grasses chiding at the cold 

Are ruffled into tune : 

When the last gilts of gloom are rained 
forlorn 
On hills grown grayly old ; 
And like strange sepulchers are shocks of 
corn, 
Sweet with the season's gold : 

In yellow woods rich hazel hues are mild 
And sweet nuts choke the shell ; 



IN AUTUMN 

And the loud shrilling of the geese is wild 
Above the amber chill. 

When silvery meadows wear a purple down 
With skirts of saffron spray ; 

And the blue summer's passioned death 
doth drown 
Blue grapes till blue is gray : 

When buff brown roamers feebly pipe 
'mong hills. 
Ruffling the leaves that sleep ; — 
The gray squirrels bark and by the pining 
rills 
Strange rabbits leap. 
When wind woos wind and leaf luhs leaf 
to sleep 
And wild paths darken 
And the gray stars in silver strangeness 
peep 
And grayly barken : 

When thin-fleeced nights, clear, cool and 
silvery, 
And dim white hollows lone 



IN AUTUMN 

To lilac stars that melt in bluest glee 
Dream a soft tone ; 

And gray owls strangely burst the pallid 
dark 
And like a frozen throat 
The bare hollows wind-loud, pale and 
stark 
Boom back the barren note : 

When dreary streams cry to the chill brown 
trees, 
In feeble swells, 
And hollow reeds are blown upon the 
breeze 
Like tearful knells ; 

How like a gust of tears the marble rains 

Rush from their cloudy spheres ; 
How soon dry age is quenched in tongue- 
less pains 
Poured from its heart of tears. 

Sadly the leaves and airs of Autumn sing 

Until they stir at last ; 
Sadly the rhymes of thought to dittying 



IN AUTUMN 
On sweet pipes of the past. 

Sweetly a sense of sorrow swoons around, 

O Autumn day divine ; 
And a rich sadness swells without a sound 

From thy sad heart to mine. 



WHY, WIND? 

Why dost thou mourn 
So loud, O wind, and then so dimly ring, 
And sweetly sing 
To tree and star by the gray shore 
Like some lorn Druid of a pristine morn 
Wnose words are muffled slumberously, 
dying more and more? 

Why dost thou dream 
Despairingly in fits of melancholy, 

Thy sweet rich sorrow holy, — 
To ruffled rills and rim pie silver swells 
Of music from the marble-moulded 
stream, 
Whining apassion of shrill harps and plead- 
ing shells ? 

Why dost thou muse 
And to the sallow leaves so sadly rhyme, — 



WHY, WIND? 

As a dim chime 
Stirred in the silver sculptured fern, 
That doth the spangled shapes peruse 
And sings a sacred ditty in an ancient urn ? 

Why dost thou chant 
A marble serenade unto the sky, 
And pause for no repy, — 
As to bare censors the void pipes in- 
quire 

For stifled sweetness where stale savors 
haunt 

Around a hoary stair where swoons a 

ghostly golden choir? 

Why art thou sad 
As when a Druid in green solitudes 
So grayly broods 
Like pining harps and silvery-ailing 

shells : 
Like hollow urns and reeds made mu- 
sic-mad ; — 
Thou sorrow, O thou symbol of her yearn- 
ing syllables ? 

What wouldst thou learn 



WHY, WIND? 

In thy shrill query unto bearded spheres, 
Thy satin strain of tears? 
Dost ask for .some lost love? Dost blow 
A pipe of love unto the orbs eterne, 
That to thy strange distress no silver an- 
swer glow? 

Ah, thou dost sing 
So drearily among the mossy trees 
Those mad mysteries : — 
Those songs unto the sands, those 

words unsaid ; 
To muse, to ponder on while minutes 
ring! 
Ah, now I guess thy history of love grown 
old or dead ! 

Ay, thou art growing 
Old, and older growing, thou art weary, 
Deaf and dreary, — 
Wind and world of moss and mold ; 
Strings are stiff and pieces are older 
blowihg, going: — 
Dying world; old age is dying and the 
young grow old ! 



SUNSETS 

See, where the racer wins the golden spirt ; 

And see, gashed on the goal his body 
faint, 
Red in the gilded reek of his dim hurt ; 

As if a Titian spilt a pot of paint. 

How like a crimson rose the sunset dieth, 
Bleeding its heart of all the purple wine ; 

'Tis a red rose that in the lilacs lieth, 
Flushing the pallid blooms with its de- 
cline. 

Else doth it seem a scarlet poppy flamed 
By some proud goddess who doth plushly 
pout; 

Then is her brow by all its redness shamed 
Until her golden fingers flare it out. 



MIDNIGHT 

This, to the dawn, doth like a lily swim ; 
In dew the emerald elves their eyes have 
set, — 
In this green crevice tinct with moonlight 
dim, 
Where, hark ! a tree-toad faintly trebles 
yet! 



THE GODDESS OF SPRING 

A silvery maid is stepping with a jar, — 
A white immortal milking atthefountain 
Of heaven, all the beauty and delight 
Of moist and marble joy in sylph and star, 
To pour it everywhere from cloud and 
mountain 
About the world and sky, in blue and 
white. 

So like a fair immortal when the trees 
Shaping slim leaves like pallid shells of 
light 
Bud sweetly ; and her flesh is dressed like 
these 
And greenly wreathed, although her 
brows are white. 

The sky is trickling blue o'er cloudy hills ; 
The breeze is blue among the trees and 
soon 



THE GODDESS OF SPRING 

Sweetly the breezes ditty in the tune , 
Dripping 1 and sweet from seasonable quills 

That swell upon her lips, or yet they 
swoon 
By golden leafage, all the lilac rills 
Filling the nostrilled voids of budding June! 

So white a singer in the sapphire shell 

That seals the world like a cerulean vase; 
What miracle is this that we who dwell 
In its sweet scope so swiftly scan the 
shell 

And miss her mortal face? 

Is she more like a goddess than a maid ; — 
A fair Pandora, to this mortal breed 
Gracing with flowery brides the race 
of men ? 
But yet she seems a lily, all afraid 

To dip into love's lavender, indeed, 
Her whitest self, and so she pales 
again 
In marble love, a sweet immortal maid! 



THE METEOR 

See how the glassy stars are startled 
sweetly 
Even as this moth doth flutter into fame: 
See how the golden beetle fareth fleetly 
Drenched to the core with flimsy curls of 
flame. 



THE SLEEPING STATUE 

Waken, my singer, when all souls awaken 
Unto a song, the cymballing of spring : — 
Spring! the immortal singer, though yet 
forsaken 
Of her green leaves: — the piping is so 
sweet ! 
Rise from thy darling dreams, white reed, 
and sing ! 

Waken, thou Bud ! the blossoms all awaken, 
With dewy eyes, and thou hast eyes of 
dew; 
Cool kisses of the breeze are sweetly shaken, 
And purple buds are spangled o'er thy 
feet; 
And over me thy beauty buds anew ! 

The buds are sweet, and the sweet birds 
are budding 



THE SLEEPING STATUE 

Their vernal ditties into leaves of song ; 
And like wild leaves the swallows shrill 
are scudding 
Through the slim breezes piping to the 
trees : 
Let thy young leaves, Olove, sprout sweet 
and strong. 

Up from the dew like gold of all the 
grasses, 

Faint bees and butterflies do fleetly sail : 
Fair from the azure amethystine glasses 

Clouds of fresh flutterers are hailing these ! 
And at my voice, arise, sweet statue pale! 

Waken, O voice, these are the days of sing- 
ing! 
Mute music! O melodious marble, sing! 
And reed-lipped birds like shapely ditties, 
winging; 
But they are wild and shrill and thou art 
sweet. 
Sweeter art thou than all the songs of 
spring ! 



THE SLEEPING STATUE 

Spring hath a reed the dreaming buds to 

waken ; 

O thou, fair flutist, sweeter than the 

spring, 

Thou hast a song,— my soul is here forsaken 

In the green spring: O melodist most 

sweet, 
Gold as thy glad, dear dreams, white swan, 

O sing ! 



NIGHT SOUNDS 

Was that a fairy fainting and forlorn 
Or fleeting fairly o'er the forest wild, 

Scared by a dreamy gnome with moonlight 
horn, — 
Or but the yearning of a weary child ? 



THE NIGHT-NYMPH 

Lo,like a lotus of the mystic stream, 
Like a red lily glowing from the dark : 

Blest with the emerald dew of stars that 
beam 
Wan from their temples ;— mark, 

Pure as a woman hushed in some o Id room 

Hidden in Egypt like a ruby rare, 
The night disrobes and not a blush or bloom 

Doth warm the ivory fair! 
Lo the lily stares, 

Darkened wild and wan ; 
O and the ruby glares 

Chilled with its crimson gone! 
Why palest thou, light lady beautiful, 

As in a fear, 
That some sweet lover, bad, undutiful, 

Betrayed thee, dear? 



THE NIGHT-NYMPH 

'Tis sorrow's sinile that softens thy sweet 
eyes,— 
Sweet eyes that smile senescent stars 
of light, 
To lead lost love unto thee in the skies 
From its proud passion for the nadir 
night. 
From its clear demon, death, the dark 
delight ! 
Lost love that lingers in a world of 
gloom ; 
Long love alone that plumes and pines 
and dies, 
Even as its tears are marbled on the 
tomb — 
Tears that are thine, the syballic, sweet 
eyes, 
Soft with the sorrow, lustrous with 
the light 
Of liquid love, and smiling irom thy 
skies ; — 
Sweet stars of Paradise, — 
Upon the orb thou lovest, liquid night. 

Is that thy sorrow, clear, 



THE NIGHT-NYMPH 

Longing for the lost; 
Thine the sighs I hear 
Tenderly tossed? 

How are thine eyes so clear 
Beautiful and bright? — 

Love-light in every tear, 
Tears of love are light. 

Sighs, and her silver hair 

Strange in the breeze; 
Shy songs! O anguished air! 
Sweet Mercides! 

Thou night of stars, 
Dark mistress of shy smiles and shadowy, — 

Ah, thou sweet shade of stars, 
Dost woo the world, thou beauty, 
deathfully ; 
Or peer so mortally beyond her bars, 
Beyond the stars, — 
Beyond the life of love where that may be 
Lost in eternity? 

Why wilt thou sweeten like a legend old 
Upon this human heart that burns 
below ; 



THE NIGHT-NYMPH 

Old shadow of lost love that once did hold 
The purple and the passion long ago ? 
Why dost thou wear the ivory ebony 
Of dark pale brows, and why dost thou 
beguile 
With those looks luminous, so liquidly, 
Unless that thou art she, 
With that vague violet smile 
Deepening immortally — 
The dear, dark lily of old loving Nile? 

'Tis Cleopatra's face 
Of clear eternity, 
Sta* ved in a smile of sweet senescent grace 
Shading through splendid space 
On some orbed Antony. 

Pantest, sweet night, for one 

Lost like a star; 
Passionest, dear night for none 

Sweeter than a star ? 
Deep death and thou art one 

Loving a star; 
Dark death, thou dearest one, 
Pale Potiphar! 



THE NIGHT-NYMPH 

Dark death, dear death, thou loveliest, 
my love, 
Is that thy cool caressing of the breeze, 
That stirs the slender skein of dreams 
I wove 
Of thee, with sweet and shapely 
subtleties, 
Until fair Dian dies, and bright above,— 

Is that thy shadow, love, 
And thy soft bosom tossing in the trees? 



A DRYAD'S THOUGHT 

Here may I sit, deep in my haunted home 

Amid the silences that sweetly utter, 
Mute melodies unto some gnarled gnoine, 
And moodful musings that in music mut- 
ter 
Until the leaves drip each a syrinx sweet ! 
Where o,er the world might any satyr 
roam 
And l?"?ar the songs that these still reeds 
i-epea* ? 



AN ALLEGORY 

Sweet is the night of shadows and of 
stars, — 

Still as a swan doth swoon ; 
So like a slim white swan with lilies laced 

Shines the gold moon. 

Soft as a song of silvery sweet smiles, 

Sweet is the violet dark ; 
So like a shy and shadowy violet 

Gold pansies mark. 

O daisy dark ! and tender with the tunes, 
Trebled from tinkling trees ; 

Rare ripples from the reeds of lovely loons 
On the bright breeze : 

Lovely and lost in liquid loveliness, 

Lit with the lilac love 
Of legend-lamps of laughing lavender, — 

Lode-stars above. 



AN ALLEGORY 

Stirs of the satin stillness of her dress; 

Sounds strange-silvery ; 
So soft a silence sheathes her silken stress,— 

The songster, she ! 

Pale, with the purple passion in his eyes— 

Pansies and violets : — 
Long love-loops melting dewy diamond 
dreams 

Like amulets ! 

Melts the mute marble! O the musical, 

The mad maturities ! — 
Pure pallid poem of a maiden muse 

Of mysteries ! 

Smiles and the shadows sweeten in her eyes, 

Smiling and fading far ; 
Shining with smiles into the shadowy, 
Lo, like a star! 

Panting no more for all the purple pools 

Lit with the lily's gold ; — 
Lost lilac of old lovely Lebanon, 

O night of old ! 



A LOTUS JEWEL 

This serene scope's an emerald malachite 

Hidden for ages in the dark domain, — 
Thecloudy realm sealed and curtained tight 

The black and marble vaults sunk deep 
amain 
Beneath the bases of the pyramids, — 

Where sable slumber did its dreams entomb 
Until they swooned through her ivory lids. 

And upward swam from gold and gloom 
to gloom. 

Or could it be some dusky priest had 
found, — 
Delving in olden Egypt in the sand 
At the behests his pallid Isis frowned 
For dread enchantments to inform a 
wand, — 
An amber jewel in the golden ground, 
Merging to magic night at his command 



SONG 

The faded fields forlorn . 

The sere and silver corn, 
Wherein the weird winds mourn ; 

Their sighing; shadow strays, — 
The wan and wistful days. 

The gold and saffron fields. 

Wherein the yellow yields 
Unto the sober grays : 

The woodlands that were red 
Flare dim ; strange leaves are shed- 

The sweet and serious grays — 
Wild songs of woodland ways. 

Haply we may not spare 
One hope from one despair, 

Sweet soul ! My spring ! 
Though the young year yields 
'he gold and saffron fields 
Unto the stranger there, 

I'll hear thee sing! 



SONG 

Sing, though the stranger sad 

Is gray, and all the glad 
Gold of thy music then 

Will gild the leaves with green 
And sweeten the strange sheen 

Of Autumn sober-clad ! 
The gray wood green again 

The greenwood glad ! 

However we dream it here, 
Nor yield to the yellow year, 

Some distant day, my dear, 
We'll find the golden leaf ; — 

We'll And the silver sheaf. 
Some day, dear! 



A DAY OF AUTUMN 

The world is wan and the wind, 
Ah, the wind is strange and shrill 

With the tones of the golden grass- 
Fallen gray and still ! 

And the grey hath grown in the sky ; 

And the golden greenwood ways, 
So glad and green have withered 

The gold to the gray of the days. 

And the days are deep with the death, 
And dark with a dream of doom ; 

Strange with sober shadows 
That come with the gleam and gloom. 

The fields are faint with the flare 
Of the wan and wistful year — 

Flaring and fading the fields of life 
Faint in the frail and sere. 



A DAY OF AUTUMN 

And the songs that seemed so sweet, 
Sung in the glad green spring, 

Are shrill in the sound of the leaves 
And sigh in the sheels that sing : 

And the song that seemed so sweet, 
The later,— the sweeter song,— 

Of the golden leaf and the silver sheaf 
Far-off and the long love, long ;— 

Ay, the dream with the death is dark, 
And the song as the leaves are sere ; 

For a shadowy stranger came 
With the shade and the silence, dear. 

Ay, this is the golden leaf, 

And the life and the leaf are gray ; 
We have found the silver sheaf, 

Ah, dear, and the "distant day." 



THE SHADOW 

SPRING 

Glosses of gold hair 

Whitest temples tease ; 
Lo, and limbs of lavendar 

Bloom the breeze! 

From her dewy feet 

In gray grass, the lark, 
Sends long liquids shrill and sweet, 

Hark, Ohark! 

Tis the shadow, she, 
Singing sweetest spring ; 

Breezy, beautiful blue bee, 
Sweet ! O sing ! 

FALL 

In the green wood dark, 
By the purple pool, 



THE SHADOIV 

What wild whiteness streaketh stark, 
Kissed and cool? 

In the golden wood, 
In the greenwood's gold ; — 

Softest swan-styles, brownly brood,— 
Blush to bold. 

'Tis the shadow, she, 

Lovely as the lark ; 
Sweetest singing silently, 

Hark, Ohark! 



UNDER THE GRASS 

Under the golden grass, 
Sweet ; — and who would save 

A soul from the sleep: ah me! 
A goodly thing is the grave. 

Good as the gold of life; 

True as the tested tin; 
Full as the fame is frail, 

And worthier win. 

Away from the winds of the world 

A leaf of life let pass; 
For the grave is a goodly thing 

Under the golden grass. 

Fair as the flowers are; 

Sweet as the sleep is dear, 
Long as the love-lost love: 

Ah, who would hope him here. 



THE WIZARD 

Stepped soberly as any maiden strays, 
All silent-sweet in garments strange and 
sere, 
Skeining a silvery stillness for the days 
And paling in the purple of the year ; 
The land was still ; but soon her dreaming 
dear 
Sighed into songs and wreathed with 
yellow bays 
The old musician with an anthem drear — 
The wierd wind haunted all the gilded 
ways. 

So magically, and with music mild 
She charmed the golden world unto the 

gray, — 
Unto the death, with dreams as deep and 

dear ; 



THE WIZARD 

And sad it seemed that the enchanted 

child, 
Should be so sweet a demon, darling gay, 
Tempting our love to trick us with a 

tear. 



A WINTER LYRIC 

Hoar Winter neareth now and treadeth 
like a stone 
On world, on star, in stormy works of 
sky; 
He broodeth like the dream, he waileth 
like the moan 
Of some gnarled oak of age that pines to 
die. 

Oh thou, with shrill strings wild and hoary, 
Stern strength of clouds and storm and 
sea, 

Roll to the stars thy marble story ; 
And as thou singest, I'll sing to thee. 

SONG 

The storm is shrill, 

O wailing wind ; 

The stars are chill, 



A WINTER LYRIC 

But Rosalind 
Laughs sweetly like a sweet blue rill, 
Though star and wind 
Are strange and chill. 

The frost-teeth gnash among the trees ; 

They scare the flocks and feathers wide; 
The chilly herds bleat in the breeze, 

Like buds and birds that May ward ride. 

Dieth the gale 

On feeble ears ; 
The stars are frail 

Through feeble tears, 
And olden chords of passion fail 
The ailing years 

With foot-steps frail. 

Strings sad and old, 

The frosty strings, 
Hoar ages mold 

And winter rings 
In hearts and urns of withered gold, 
Where gray moss clings 

And tones blow old. 



A WINTER LYRIC 

■Stern seer, torn times with hoary rage, 
He treadeth now in storm and scar; 

Bleak symbol of impassioned age, 
Of bearded Lear and bursting star ! 

Howl, haggard storm, 
Shriek, song of age: 

Thou canst not harm 

With barren rage, 

Nor choke my lamp with cold, nor warm 

The stone of age, 
Thou haggard storm ! 

Thy frosts may seem 

The hoar of years, 
The feathery stream 

Of foam that clears 
From June's blue bowl of cloudy cream ; 
Or pallid tears 

Thy gray frosts seem. 

Dark, silvery Druid ! Priest of Tears ! 

Bite in my heart thy barbarous breath ; 
Thou musing ghost of all the years, 

Pine on thy harp a dream of deat 



A IVIhlTER LYRIC 

The storm is shrill, 
And drear and old ; 

The stars are chill, 
And clouds are cold, 
Like ghostly wood-bards, gray and still,. 

When morn is tolled 
By tempests shrill. 

Thou whitest bard ! thou art not old ; 

Young Winter ! stranger of the skies ! 
Know Rosalind laughs through the cold 

With the sweet summer in her eyes. 

Burst, storm and star ! 

Roar, winter wind ! 
Thou canst but mar 

Where looks are thinned ! 
Ay, withered Lear, at storm and scar 
Laughs Rosalind — 

Thou aged spar! 

The frozen chill is on the trees, 

And haggard Lear broods in the storm ; 
But Lear or Death ! who cares for these? 

Sweet Rosalind, thy heart is warm! 



A WINTER LYRIC 

Hoar winter, ay; thou treadest like a stone, 
Scarring the trunks and gnarled boughs, 
thou art 

A frosty scythe, I think ; but lamp or tone 
Thou canst not chill or sever in my heart. 



THE END 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

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